Saturday’s fete was an unashamed attempt to show that Mr Balladur could be a “man of the people”, and he did his best. His very amateurishness may even have won him a few more votes. In his address, he actually “sold” himself as an “amateur” and contrasted himself thus with Mr Chirac, whom he accused – not by name – of “demagogy”.This was a complete contrast to his earlier campaign pitch, which had stressed both his experience and professionalism as Prime Minister, and his desire not to have the campaign become a personal slanging match.For all the indignities the Prime Minister had to suffer on Saturday, the fete was judged a huge success in helping to remotivate his somewhat jaded supporters.And there were signs that Mr Balladur himself was starting to relish the battle: “I will fight to the end,” he said in an interview last week His performance at the fete suggested that he meant it.. Mr Balladur’s attempts at populism – his visits to flood victims in January, his attempt to pat a cow at an agricultural show – were widely ridiculed. Instead of setting out their political wares, presenting themselves as men of principle and inviting the electorate to choose, the three main candidates seem to be adapting their methods and their policies to what they think the voters want – or at least, what seems to be working for their opponents.One of the great strengths of Jacques Chirac, current favourite to win the election, is his popular touch and his perceived accessibility.

There were merry-go-rounds and games for the children, comedians and rock groups for the “youth with Balladur”, and plenty of chairs for the aged and just plain tired.And then, at 3 o’clock, there was a big political speech by “Doudou” that was perpetually interrupted with chants of “Edouard for President” from the expertly orchestrated cheer-leaders. So unused was the Prime Minister to all this, that one of his aides had to whisper to him that the chanting was the cue for him to grin and wave his arms in triumph – not tell the audience to calm down.That the Balladur camp decided to mount such an exercise at all showed the extent to which this presidential campaign has become voter-led. There was an abundance of food and drink – crpes and cider from Brittany, cassoulet from Toulouse, oysters and Muscadet at 20 francs a portion, and bottles of Champagne for 100 francs with labels that read “The Marne is for Balladur”. The occasion was a day-long spectacular, a festival for Balladurists, nearly 20,000 of whom had been transported from all over the country to a series of disused aircraft hangars that now form the exhibition ground at Le Bourget, north-east of Paris.
The skies were grey and a cold wind blew the paper cups over,but the fete was well organised and scheduled almost to the minute.

This weekend, however, Mr Balladur found himself doing all three – and all for the sake of becoming France’s next president. Still less would you imagine him standing, willingly, on a table, waving his arms in time to disco music. “We believe the convention should be strengthened through concrete targets and timetables,” says Angela Merkel, the German environment minister, who will preside over the conference.. Edouard Balladur, with his Savile Row suits and formal manners, is not, you would think, a man who delights in answering to the endearment “Doudou”, or even claiming a slogan that reads “France with Edouard”. What the EU has in mind is a commitment by the developed countries to stabilise or cut their emissions between 2000 and 2010.Britain and Germany are pushing for a post-2000 cut. Climatologists believe the largest changes in rainfall will occur in the tropics, and developing countries lack the resources to adapt their agriculture to climate change.The European Union will be pushing for a mandate from Berlin for nations to negotiate a strengthened treaty in time for the next conference of parties in 1997. They point out that the rich North carries most responsibility for the threat, and many say the OECD will have to pay them to find ways of growing their economies without rapidly increasing coal, oil and gas consumption.The fact is, however, that the Third World is the most at risk from global warming.

Hence the strategy of delay and the pending failure of nations rich and poor to promise to curb greenhouse gases. Such curbs imply cutting consumption of fossil fuels, the drug on which all but the most impoverished of economies remain hooked.A grouping of more than 30 small island states, some of whose members fear they may disappear under rising sea levels, are calling for a new treaty protocol under which the developed countries would cut their carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent between 1990 and 2005.That proposal has no chance of winning the necessary consensus in Berlin, although it has some support among the G77 grouping of Third World nations. And some wealthy countries may be able to be almost indifferent – their climate changes will be slight and the necessary adaptations cost less than 1 per cent of GDP.Climate change remains, then, a largely unknown threat which will come to pass well outside most current senior politicians’ terms of office. Rather more are expected to be losers, with poor, densely populated countries struggling to cope with more frequent drought and flooding. The scientists offer no precision whatsoever in forecasting how these climate alterations will be distributed – nor will they be able to for at least another five years.Some nations may actually benefit from the change, being able to grow more food and enjoy a less extreme climate. At this stage, climatologists can still provide only the haziest estimates of how fast climates will change; a rise in average temperatures of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees centigrade by 2100 is their best guess.Some regions will warm more than others and there will also be local changes in the amount and the seasons of rainfall.